Rich White Boys

To get into Well’s Club you had to meet two requirements: One, have a rich dad. Two, have a rich mom. But that wasn’t really enough. A lot of Ivy League kids had rich parents, but not all of them were allowed to join W’s Club. You needed something extra, but the board wouldn’t spell it out. Otherwise they’d be like a frat. It helped if your dad’s Wikipedia page said he’d been charged with something like money laundering and tax evasion. It helped if your mother did vaguely philanthropic work. But it really was decided case by case.

I heard you had to prove your loyalty by buying and burning a plane ticket from New York to Seoul. Or maybe it was throwing two-carat diamonds in the Hudson. Then you could gawk at the white thoroughbred Arabian gelding I heard they kept in their garden. I heard they owned a whole herd of them and sometimes joggers on Riverside Park would spot the horses stepping through the trees like apparitions.

Anyway, the point is obviously I said yes when Brooks invited me to a party at the Club. Actually, he didn’t call it a party because W’s Club was not a frat. He called it a gala. I said yes and immediately spent my entire week’s tutoring paycheck on a shiny dress from ASOS.

In the foyer, Brooks took my arm. You can’t tell anyone what happens here, he told me. The wall sconces cast soft golden light onto a red Persian carpet. A staircase spiraled up toward faint music, and underneath the staircase sat a fat grand piano. It’s a secret, he said.

I met Brooks in our freshman econ class. He was tall with the languid yet correct posture of a sailboat, and he smiled with flat white teeth. At boarding school, he was vice president of the American Culture Club, which he said celebrated real American culture like tailgates and lawn games. He said this without irony, which fascinated me. But rich white boys could get away with that. I told myself I accepted his gala invite because I wanted to see what else they could get away with.

Upstairs, what looked like a ballroom was filled with people gyrating to trap music that a W’s Club boy in headphones played from his laptop in the corner. He looked down at his phone, a glowing rectangle in the darkness. Brooks led me through the crowd. In the middle of the room, there was a keg set up, like you’d see in a frat, except W’s Club was not a frat. Brooks scooped up liquid from the keg in a red Solo cup and handed it to me. Next to us, a W’s Club boy was yelling into his phone. Bring more kegs, he screamed. And bring the hottest babes you have.

In any case, none of this is really the story I’m telling. I’m getting to it.

The boy on the phone was now yelling at Brooks to go get him something. I saw Brooks’s face twist with a feralness I recognized because I saw it in myself whenever Brooks talked to me. I saw it in my mother whenever a customer spoke to her very, very slowly at the cash register. But it was gone in a moment. Then Brooks was too.

I scanned the crowd and was surprised to spot Hana. She stood close to a lanky W’s Club boy with a pockmarked face. She was the only other Asian girl I’d seen so far in the room, and we made eye contact because we were bound to. We were surrounded by W’s Club boys, white boys on the verge of life, all of whom could make us cry in the dark despite our self-possession, our worldliness.

She made her way over and we hugged the way people do at these things, tapping our arms against each others’ backs, cups held aloft. Oh my god, I haven’t seen you in forever. A sort of automated, boneless movement. Hana and I looked at each other and then she looked at the cup in my hand and said, Did you drink from that yet? And I said, I think I took a sip, why? She said, When? And I said I wasn’t sure. And she said, I heard they just put something in the keg, so don’t drink more from it. Then Brooks came back and wrapped an arm around my waist, pulling me close.

I had a moment of clarity, as if I were looking at myself from above the room, seeing myself at a party where a girl was telling me about the roofies in my drink while a boy was feeling me up. I saw myself lying in his bed later like a jellyfish washed ashore. The wellspring of life opened up before me and I saw us eating endless dinners at Il Buco. I saw him proposing to me on a bay beach in Southampton. We had an intimate wedding in Darien, Connecticut, where his parents had married too. The Times wrote up a wedding announcement for us. He was promoted to managing director at the firm and our sons enrolled at Choate. The relentless imperialism of romance bore down on me, cutting my days into undone ribbons, guiding me with his suited arm through a real ballroom full of my slender-necked peers as I asked, What year is it?

Another girl shrieked with laughter nearby. I tore myself from Brooks’s grip and shoved through the crowd and ran into the bathroom at the other end of the room. I slammed the door behind me. I bent over the toilet with one finger down my throat, retching, the way I’d learned to do at frats.

When I felt good about the amount of liquid I’d thrown up, I straightened and walked out the door. I walked through the crowd. I walked past two W’s Club boys who were leading two girls into a hallway. I walked past the keg. I didn’t know where Brooks was. I walked out of the room and down the spiral staircase, tripping on my long dress. In the foyer, I looked down at the Persian rug and saw half an onion ring was stuck to its fringe. I nudged it across the skidmarked hardwood floor. When I caught sight of the piano, I suddenly felt the urge to touch it. The key I pressed was out of tune, but it still sounded so sweet.

I can tell this story again, but the ending will always be the same. Outside, the night air was cool and the sky was dark blue. As I stood on the doorstep of the Club, two white girls in skirts and heels walked by and stopped, looking up at me. I should say they were looking up at the building with its windows spilling light behind me. I realized that when I saw the recognition in their eyes.

Then they looked at me in my silvery dress, and one of them said, Is this W’s Club? I said yes. Is there a party going on right now? I said, It’s a gala, but yes.

What’s it like?

I was very apologetic in the way I said, Sorry, I’m not allowed to tell you. I even grimaced. It’s amazing in there though. Things you’ve never seen.

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